Disclaimer: I do not claim any ownership to the Lorien Legacies Franchise. I hereby wave any rights to profit from the proceeding story. If anybody tries to sue me, keep in mind that my mother is a lawyer and you will lose. Thank you.
Chapter One: The Killing of Number One
I was the oldest member of the garde who escaped from Lorien the day of the Mogadorian invasion. Unfortunately for me, I was also the only Loric unlucky enough to be Number One.
I don't remember the physical profile of the other eight children who escaped. I only know that they're much luckier than I am.
Perhaps the only advantage to being Number One is the degree of importance bestowed in my hands. I am the only member of the garde who can stop the Mogadorians from beginning their countdown from nine to zero.
In any regard, the facts of my life don't change. No matter how much they suck.
I was seven when I left. My cêpan, Joseph, told me that the other members of the garde ranged from age three to age five when we left Lorien. I guess if anybody had to be Number One, my age qualifies me best for the job.
I know I am to receive my legacies first. The problem is I am only 11 right now. We've been here three short years and already we've been located. Joseph and I screwed up big time three days ago.
We had just departed from Baskin Robbins, my favorite ice cream parlor. Joseph always gets me two scoops of cookie dough with oreo cookie crumbles in it. It has been my favorite flavor ever since we moved to Canberra, Australia two years ago. Before that we had been jumping from Saudia Arabia to France to India to Venezuela and now Australia. We've been here for far longer than we should have stayed. But ever since we've been moving from country to country, I've developed severe anxiety and panic attack disorder.
"Mathew," Joseph addressed me by my alias, "we need to consider moving away from Canberra."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because now that your conditions are well managed, we really need to move around some more. The Loric leave traces of their being everywhere they go. It's only a matter of forensics and time until we're located."
I was not to be deterred from remaining in the only place I knew as "home."
"Well there's been no trace of those peeps you call Mogs in this town," I replied with a bitter tone, "it'd be stupid to just settle down somewhere where the local traditions are foreign."
"Listen, Matt-"
"Do not call me Matt! It's bad enough I live on this stinkhole called earth, knowing I'm the only vulnerable alien on this planet, fighting anxiety and panic attacks daily without you calling me a pathetic human nickname!"
"Sorry, Mathew," Joseph uttered rather frustrated with my pre-teen angst. A pompous, self-assured smile plays upon my lips. "But the reality is this whole Loric thing is pretty dang tricky for me to keep calm about too. I would really appreciate it if you kept your voice down. We've never seen a Mog on earth so we would have no way of knowing what one looks like."
At the exact moment Joseph finished justifying his thoughts, I suddenly felt an eerie sense that the last sentence out of my beloved cêpan's mouth had been a trigger to an unwelcome gun.
A tall shadow emerged from seemingly nowhere. I'm not sure how I knew to do it but I turned around, and with Joseph's prized Loric knife, I slashed the throat of our stalker.
I got lucky.
The figure behind us had been a Mog. It only took about two seconds for it to disintegrate into a worthless pile of stagnant ash. Ash that once housed a spirit so evil.
Joseph and I ran the remaining six blocks to our city home. He grabbed my chest and we retreated from Canberra in our 2003 Ford Explorer.
Three days later, we've made it to Melbourne where we plan to flee to Churchill, New Zealand. Joseph urges me to get some more sleep. We're staying in the Airport Hilton until 4:00 AM tomorrow morning. We will catch a flight to Wellington and a second flight to Churchill.
But I can't sleep. How could I? My anxiety is skyrocketing. The only comfort I can find is the knowledge that Joseph and I escaped.
Joseph is a brilliant cêpan and I love him with every corner of my heart. He is a confident man with short, brown hair absent of a widows peak. He has powerful, broad shoulders with arms to match. He is about 6'2" and probably around 220 pounds. I stare at myself in our bathroom mirror, and I wonder if this body will still be alive in a day. Two days? A month? Four years? My wavy blond hair is a fine fit for my sapphire blue eyes and thin nose. I'm tall for an 11-year-old but have as of yet to develop a legacy.
I finally manage to drift off around 1:30. When I wake, Joseph and I head to the airport. I've been to an airport before, and today I should feel no different than the other times I've had to board a plane to flee from place to place. We place our Loric weapons in our suitcases and check our only two bags.
Being in the air is Joseph's least favorite period of time. We're unarmed and cornered in a small space that yields no route of escape. But he and I both know that taking a plane is the most efficient and effective way of escaping Australia. Lately, commercial ocean liners leaving Australia have been disappearing. Joseph believes that the Mogs use thermal imaging to identify higher body temperatures (I run a body temperature of about 104 farenheit or 40 celcius) and then bomb the ships. But so far, the Mogs have only managed to eliminate unlucky humans who happen to be on a ship with somebody with an uncontrolled fever.
I spot a Starbucks coffee shop a short ways away from the security checkpoint we just passed through. I personally detest coffee, but Joseph likes the bitter and burned taste that characterizes Starbucks.
"We must look like zombies in the exhausted state we're in." I say to Joseph, trying to keep his hopes for escape high, despite the fact that I'm probably far more pessimistic about our prospects that he is.
Joseph appreciates my gesture and gives me knowing grin. "You know kiddo? You would have had many friends in America. You're observant, intelligent and empathetic. I know I haven't been the most caring father to you these past few days, but that's why we're vacationing in New Zealand."
After the incident in Canberra, I know that Joseph is talking in a sort of code as to not give us away as alien. Of course he means "Lorien" instead of "America." But I catch the gist of what he's communicating.
Joseph orders a grandé iced vanilla latté. I ask for a hot chocolate, despite the fact that it's a toasty day in January. While we sit in the food court, I solve sudoku. I've always enjoyed working with numbers. They make sense. I've never confessed this to Joseph, but I believe that math puzzles make more sense to me than our home planet. Joseph adjusts his large, athletic frame to fit between the lady's chair at the next table and a decorative floral arrangement. He cruises the news all the time. Always scanning for word of the others. We've only identified one news story that could've been of Loric creation.
A year ago in Florence, Italy, a distraught seven-year-old girl stumbled into a street for some unidentified reason and was struck by a bus traveling 30 mph. Instead of the girl being killed, the driver of the bus was pressed against his seat with a force of a bus. All of his ribs had been shattered and he was dead only moments after the bus hit the girl. To our knowledge, she hasn't been located. But I know she's one of us. How else could she be unharmed? But the thought makes me shutter: if a bus hit me with that force, I would be dead in a heartbeat.
"All quiet on the Loric front," Joseph informs me with a subtle hint of joy. I know his positive tone is a result of three things. First, no signs of the others being captured. Second, no signs of Mogadorians. Third, he just did a play off of the Erich Maria Remarque novel All Quiet on the Western Front. Although many would deem Joseph's play on words as offensive, Joseph was one of the leading experts on human warfare back on Lorien. I know his statement is a reminder of why he is on earth and how important it is that I survive.
"Awesome!" I say. I'm not worried about Joseph saying the word "Loric" because he had been checking to make sure that we were alone when he was scrolling through news stories tagged "miracle", "explosion", "disappearance", and "sighting."
We make our way to gate A1. Of course it's A1. The first stinkin' letter and number. Very appropriate for my number.
Joseph and I take our seats at 12D and 12E. Joseph always takes the aisle as to better protect me. I take the middle so that I'm not cornered against a wall, and so that I'm not exposed to danger in the aisle.
I rest my head on Joseph's massive shoulder. I'm so tired. It's so unfair. Most teenage boys worry about girls, grades, and at the worst, domestic affairs. But no I have to concern myself with staying alive and remaining invisible to everyone around me.
"It's ok," Joseph assures me with a paternal smile. "We'll be able to rest easy once we get settled down in Churchill. But you realize that we'll have to move away from New Zealand with a few months, right?"
I nod solemnly. I've always appreciated Joseph's upfront, yet tender honesty.
Unfortunately for us, neither of us catches the sight of five men in boots, trench coats and what I like to call "Old Englishman hats" casually take their places behind us. Each is probably slightly smaller than Joseph.
As our plane reaches its cruising altitude, I reach a state of lethargy: I'm unable to fall asleep but I'm unable to remain fully aware of my surroundings. I'm shaken awake when a piercing scream fills the cabin.
Two of the trench coat men, now clearly Mogadorians, have isolated my section of the plane from the rest of the cabin. Of course the Mogs would pull out their blasters to scare people. What else would they do? Behave like a civilized life form? Hehe that'd be a good joke for Monty Python, I think to myself. But that thought is gone in an instant as I know that I am in danger and that I must defend myself.
Joseph is a step ahead of me. He puts one of the Mogadorians in a headlock and snaps its neck with his massive arm. I leap over my seat and attempt to disarm one of the Mogadorians. However, it is too quick for me. It ducks under my lunge and grabs my left foot. Before I can say "oh crap", it has me pinned against the overhead compartment. That is until Joseph knocks it out cold. That's just what Joseph would do: he'd fight for his own foolish garde even at 20,000 plus feet.
Our brief rebellion ends there, though. Before my panicking brain can register the sequence of events correctly, Joseph has been shot by a Mog and one of the three remaining Mogs has me pinned on the ground. His hand rips my pendant off. I glance around desperately at the other passengers, hoping that one of them will have to courage to defend an 11-year-old boy.
I'm as unlucky as I was the day I became Number One. The other passengers are more fearful than I am because they have no clue what even just went down. As the Mogadorian on me raises his sword to stab me, I manage to ease out the words: "The Loric... It only starts with me... You'll never finish our race!"
Even though I know I can do no more, those words in a sense validate the fight posed by Joseph and I. I know that I truly did everything I could've done for Lorien on this plane.
The Mog grins. It's filthy pale yet dark facial features become apparent. It's tiny teeth menacing as they gleam from lights on the aisle floor. It swoops the silvery-white sword from its upright position above me and swings it down in a perfect arc right into my heart.
Right before the sword strikes, I catch sight of Joseph moving. He's not dead! I think to myself. I know that Joseph can't help me now and I'm sure he knows it too. I want him to play dead so that the Mogs just might let this plane land and not bother to stab or shoot him again. I want Joseph to help the other members of the garde if at all possible.
But my last thought lasts all of a fraction of a second. The last thing I feel is the ice cold blade on the surface of my skin just over my heart.
And then it's all over.